CONNECTING THE iDiOTS

NPR's web scribes, for the Friday ME story "US 'Connects the Dots' to Catch Roadside Bombers" tell us

"With his doctorate from Princeton, Army Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has become the prime example of a special breed of soldier: the warrior-scholar, trained in history and politics as well as how to fight wars. Now there's a variation on the theme: the warrior mathematician, adept in the complex modeling that has become a key part of military planning."

Hey, if it's all about scholars, war, and deep cover thoughts then who better than the CIA's best friend in journalism - Tom Gjelten. And why not honor Reporter Tom with another installment of his own dynamic, hyperlinked comic strip [click on each panel to visit the super-brainy links] :

The Art of Enhanced Distraction

On Friday I was staying late at work and before leaving heard this promising start to a story on All Things Considered:

"This week, we've been reading a vivid narrative in the New York Times by the journalist David Rohde. He was held captive for seven months by the Taliban. He was moved frequently from house to house all over remote parts of Pakistan. And one detail in this story made us particularly curious."

Holy cow! I thought, NPR is going to allude to the three rather stunning observations contained in Rohde's articles which Glenn Greenwald so aptly wrote about a few days ago:

1. The actions of the US in killing countless civilians (especially Muslims) in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine have "galvanized the Taliban."
2. The US practice of holding detainees in abusive conditions "for years without being charged" has also has strengthened the Taliban.
3. How much more humanely Rohde was treated by his captors compared to the treatment meted out to similarly innocent captives at the hands of US military and intelligence agencies. As Rohde notes, his captives gave him bottled water, let him walk outside, and "never beat me."
   

In my head I was already composing the positive post I'd put up on this blog about NPR taking on this obvious - but still controversial - angle.

Alas, I couldn't have been more wrong. What was that "one detail" which made the collective "us" at NPR so curious?

"Rhode got a letter from his wife through the International Red Cross. How in the world did the Red Cross deliver him a letter when no one knew where he was? Well, the online magazine Slate found out for its "Explainer" column. Here's Andy Bowers with the answer."

Granted, the operations of the Red Cross in trying to contact hostages is pretty interesting - as The Guardian noted way back in 2004 (and MSNBC) and McClatchy detailed in 2008. And it's not a closed issue as this 2009 Newsweek article on ghost detainees reveals. Seems like those stories never gained much traction for the journalists at NPR news.

Interestingly, another Red Cross angle found its way into a Greenwald analysis today - Netanyahu's declaration that hiding prisoners from the Red Cross is a war crime (!?). Could there be two more polar opposite attitudes revealed by comparing Greenwald's work to NPR's? In one the focus is on the hypocrisy of those in power and the ways in which their deceit and misdeeds make the world more violent and dangerous for all of us. In the other, there is a perverse effort to focus on the most trivial and distracting details - even when such details are painfully ironic.

This Is What a Double Standard Looks Like

If you've forgotten the great Iranian bogey man of 2007, who could blame you? At the time NPR was acting as a Pentagon-to-radio live feed of completely unsubstantiated claims that Iran was behind every attack on US forces in Iraq (e.g. Feb 2007, April 2007, early May 2007, late May 2007, June 2007, and Dec. 2007). There was never any concern for evidence, no matter how ludicrous the Pentagon's claims were - NPR just dutifully repeated the accusations.

So now Iran has had several dozen people (including high ranking Revolutionary Guard leadership) killed in a suicide bombing carried out by the Baluchistan-Pakistan based group Jundallah and is claiming that the US was involved - and not just Iran is making such claims. On Tuesday's ATC, Melissa Block interviews RAND expert (uh-oh), Christine Fair, looking for answers. Block notes,

"There have been charges in the press and statements made by Pakistani officials that the US is somehow tied to Jundallah - supporting them, in some cases with money, with arms, in other cases what's described as arms-length support. What are those allegations based on and is there any truth to these charges?"

Not a bad question. And here's Fair's answer:

"Well, I have no ability to assess whether or not there's truth to these charges....the Americans, we have a presence in Baluchistan...[on] the Pakistani side...Baluchistan houses the military bases where we launch Predator attacks, so this is where the suspicion enters."

That's kind of funny, because actually suspicions enter due to some pretty weighty indications that it's true - Asia Times, the UK's Telegraph, the New Yorker, and ABC News. But Fair is not done, she continues,

"The allegation is that the Americans would like to poke at Iran in the way in which it has poked at us in Iraq, as well as in Afghanistan...there is an ability and there is certainly a motive. Whether or not there's evidence is another story."

Notice how cleverly the "allegation" about the Americans is now based on the FACT that Iran..."has poked at us in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan..." I must say it's a strange use of the word "poke" - be careful if Christine tries to friend you on Facebook!

Melissa Block, of course, makes no challenge to the allegation that Iran has done similar things to the US. Instead she simply recoils from the very idea that the blameless US could EVER do such things,

"That's quite a hot allegation - the idea that the US would have ties to an extremist group based in Pakistan, that has close ties to al-Qaeda."

Fair uses this naivete to rehash an equally "hot allegation" about Iran being a sanctuary for al-Qaeda (where have I heard this scenario before?), "I think that's a strong argument for why we wouldn't be doing it...Iran has been accused of harboring al-Qaeda leadership so it had the strong incentive to characterize these as al-Qaeda."

Rumors

I thought that NPR's spring 2007 campaign to convince listeners that Iran was running and supplying the Iraqi insurgency (April 11, 2007 and May 26, 2007 for example) was a thing of the past. But dang, on Friday's ATC Quil Lawrence is in Iraq talking up the dangers of the small, lethal shaped-charge RKG-3 grenades, which have been used against US forces for years (this from 2006), as if they were something new - and he casually slips in the following:

"Some of these grenades are rumored to be coming in from Iran..."

I guess it's important to keep all rumors "on the table."

Irony (and History) Is Dead at NPR

(graphic from Borev.net)

On Saturday's ATC Guy Raz held a friendly with John Negroponte to see what he thought about the US joining the UN Human Rights Council. Negroponte told Raz

• "No matter how repugnant some of these organizations or behaviors might be, we're probably better served in an international organization by participating..."
• "I think the leadership...are from countries that have good human rights records..."

Raz added his own skepticism noting that it barely approved monitors for Darfur and "it's already withdrawn human rights monitors from places like Cuba and Belarus. Can the council really be taken seriously if, as some have argued, many of it's decisions are simply political?"

Has Raz ever heard of irony, or for that matter Google? All one has to do it Google "Negroponte human rights" and voila! you get a whole assortment of interesting information about Negroponte's lifelong journey through the dark side. During the report Raz tells us that John Negroponte was "former US Ambassador to Iraq and UN, former director of National Intelligence, and most recently Deputy Secretary of State under the Bush Administration" but - dang! - he somehow failed to mention Negroponte's gig in Honduras from 1981 to 1985. That's odd because there's a lot of information out there about it. Let's see he's got his own special file at the National Security Archive, a nice long newspaper article in the Baltimore Sun, a virtual dossier of articles at In These Times, attention from The Nation and The Progressive, and even a film about his time there.

But really, who needs to know that Negroponte was running cover for an infamous Honduran death squad (Battalion 316) and paling around with death squad leader General Gustavo Alvarez when all he's on to talk about is the effectiveness of a UN human rights council? Besides that was so long ago, and after his tenure in Iraq there's no indication that the US had created death squads like the ones Negroponte helped operate in Honduras...or is there?

Mission: Whitewash #1

A reader noted in the Q Tips section below that the AP reported (and the NYT and the Voice of America and...) on the Senate Report on Torture which tied the US torture of detainees to Rumsfeld and other top Pentagon officials. The reader noted having searched NPR's site for coverage of the report, but come up empty handed!

Also, as I noted in a post on Wednesday, NPR relegated the damning testimony of a leading US interrogator to its Talk of the Nation program. In contrast, a spot on Friday's Morning Edition is given to US Army interrogator, Eric Maddox, who has co-authored a book (Mission: Blacklist #1) about his role in capturing Saddam Hussein. Maddox makes the US interrogations in Iraq from the summer through December of 2003 sound like they were being run by the Boy Scouts.

Inskeep: "Did you end up like those detectives on television with a bulletin board of some kind covered with photographs and names and lines connecting...?"

Maddox: "We did."

On a positive note, in the interview, Maddox advocates non-brutal interrogations ("...does me no good to be threatening or to be brutal...") - although he does use the threat of unending detention as pressure ("the situation of undetermined, long term detention" as he puts it.) But given the the disgusting and systematic US torture and abuse of detainees during that time period, any fool claiming to be a journalist would have a few questions for Good Cop Maddox.

Inskeep could have asked, "What did you know of the torture and abuse that was occurring in Iraq at the time you were stationed there?" If denied, a follow-up might be "You say you 'interrogated several hundred prisoners' and yet you never found evidence of abuse?" In fact what Jack Bauer Inkseep asks reveals a lot about his character:

"There must have been people who immediately cooperated with you and people who were extremely uncooperative - which makes me wonder if you ever did get close to a moment where you really wanted to hit the guy?"

Yep, nothing about rampant torture by US forces (noted by AI as early as June 2003), nothing about massive roundups of innocent Iraqis, nothing about the very tactics that were inflaming the insurgency - no consideration of the possibility that what made Maddox's prisoners so malleable was the knowledge of what awaited them during that "undetermined, long term detention" facing the uncooperative. Instead just Inskeep fantasizing about hitting detainees and a comic book portrayal of the good guys getting their man.

Turning the Lights Off

I'm still waiting for NPR to report on the satellite evidence that debunks NPR's routine touting of the amazin' success of The Surge™. The Reuter's report on the satellite evidence quotes the team that analyzed the evidence:

"Our findings suggest that the surge has had no observable effect, except insofar as it has helped to provide a seal of approval for a process of ethno-sectarian neighborhood homogenization that is now largely achieved."

Science Daily, covering the report quotes its authors:

"By the launch of the surge, many of the targets of conflict had either been killed or fled the country, and they turned off the lights when they left."

Pretty sad and horrible. And NPR? Seems like they like the lights off, too.

The Art of Distraction

(graphic is from NPR's web site)

This morning, as I listened to Jennifer Ludden's moving story of an Iraqi refugee finding work, support and kindess in Billings, Montana - I had the odd experience of finding myself seething. How dare NPR run this kind of folksy, feel-good story about one Iraqi refugee while it does virtually nothing to report on, investigate and expose the criminally negligent US response to the Iraqi refugee crisis that its invasion and occupation created.

I'm happy that there are people of goodwill who will help out an Iraqi refugee in the US, but good God, where is the attention to the 4.7 million Iraqi refugees displaced by this war of choice? Where is the focus on the heartless and inadequate assistance and resettlement that the US has provided for this humanitarian mess of its own making? It's not as if the problem has gotten better since the UN statistics were released in September of 2007; Amnesty International issued a scathing report on the Iraqi refugee crisis just this past June.

I was angry because I was being had. Like a good pickpocket, NPR is trying to strip us of informed outrage. It wants to distract us with a story that is notable for how little it represents the experience of most Iraqi refugees and how little information it contains about the scale of the problem and who is responsible for creating it. It takes advantage of the humanity and decency of listeners, trying to leave us feeling moved and reassured about a case that is the exception, while - of course - leaving us less informed than ever.

Fair is Fair

Be sure to check out FAIR's critique of a Weekend Edition piece on NPR's dismissive and distorted coverage of an Iraqi press conference.

Some Reform

I caught yesterday's piece on ATC by Anne Garrells talking about the legislation passed in Iraq supposedly allowing former Baathists back into jobs and into their pensions. Garrells piece does a pretty good job of talking to some Iraqis affected by the law (they are skeptical), but the general drift of the article is that the new law is a positive reform, and that it is just one that the US is pushing...

I happened to read Juan Cole's far more detailed and telling analysis of this new Iraqi law. His work (again) illustrates how limited (and favorable to the administration) NPR's coverage can be.

Playing with Zero

I was listening to Andrea Seabrook on ATC this weekend talk with Earl Blumenauer, a Democratic Representative from Oregon who wants the US to get moving on giving asylum to Iraqis who have worked with the US forces in Iraq. They talked a bit, and I have to say the usual NPR discourse on Iraqi refugees is worth commenting on.

In her discussion Seabrook talks about the US government promise to resettle 12,000 Iraqi refugees. Seabrook tells Blumenauer,

"you've been very critical of the Bush Administration's work with refugees so far, saying that the government has not done nearly enough. The Bush Administration itself has in some ways stepped up their action here; the Department of Homeland Security now says they will resettle at least 12,000 Iraqi refugees in the United States next year."

I suggest Seabrook pull out a calculator and punch in a few numbers. Take that "stepped up" number of 12,000 ("incredibly generous" as US spokesperson Rosenzweig told NPR back in October) and divide it by the number of exiled refugees (2,000,000). And what do you get? 0.006. In news-talk that's 0.6%; that's right 6 tenths of one percent! Or perhaps one should include the 2 millions internally displaced refugees in that number and you get 0.3%! Wow! Incredibly generous! Hey I realize that 6 tenths of a percent is more than zero, but not by much.

Let's say you buy the government's case that accepting a flood of Iraqi refugees into the US is a huge security risk (should've thought about that before March of 2003, eh?) then at the least the US ought to be FULLY funding the care of refugees in Jordan and Syria. Let's look at Uncle Sam's own numbers. According to the State Department, in 2006 the US provided $43 million in humanitarian assistance to internal and external refugees. Let's see, that's $43 million split between 4 million recipients: golly, that's $10.75 per refugee for 2006 -like winning the Lotto. But wait, the State Department "stepped it up" in 2007 to "almost $200 million." Now we're talking some real money - $50.00 per refugee - time to paaaarty! What more could our generous government do?

Sarcasm aside, you'd expect these paltry efforts to be described for what they are: almost nothing, scandalous, disgraceful, etc. Instead NPR uses the large sounding numbers, saying things like "accepting thousands of refugees" or "millions of dollars." Back in August of this year Amos said "the US government is the largest donor, $30 million, in a UN program to get the children of Iraqi refugees back to school" [in Jordan]. Of course that's for 50,000 students, $600 per child, for an overwhelmed Jordanian system trying to cope with kids who've missed two years of school already. It's pathetic.

You might expect a reporter to simply put it bluntly to US officials when talking about the refugee crisis: the US invaded Iraq, destroyed the society, botched any reconstruction and so it's our government's obligation to pay for it one way or another. Instead you get pieces like today's or the one in the October 2007 with Paul Rosenzweig of Homeland Security claiming that the US is so incredibly generous and that the US has no special obligation to Iraqi refugees. All Amos can say is "but we do have 130,000 troops there," as if that is why the US owes them so much.

Innoculate Yourself

I just have to recommend again Juan Cole's Informed Comment and the great group blog that he is part of called Informed Comment Global Affairs (great stuff on Pakistan). A great way to experience the alternate reality of NPR-world is to read these blogs in the morning and then tune in to NPR . I've noticed how little NPR has focused on the fact that the target of General Musharraf's coup (he's not really the president now is he?) is the judiciary of Pakistan - not the violent Islamists and terrorists cited as the reason for the crackdown.

Anne "Kurtz" Garrels Reporting

Someone needs to send a boat up the Tigris and bring Anne Garrels back for a little journalism refresher course. Garrels, investigating the forces of Muqtada al-Sadr, tells us that "his militia leaders say Iran is their chief source of weapons. But now these same leaders are saying Iran is creating big problems by supporting renegade and competing militias with very effective weapons." And what do you know, but NPR got an invitation (I wonder if it was on parchment paper with a deckled edge?) from "the head of Sadr's militia in the western side of Baghdad...to an interrogation session of three of these renegade Sadr militiamen." The rest of this report is truly shocking.

Maj. General Garrels states, "In the Sadr safe house the three detainees had clearly been tortured and the story they told was that they were trained in roadside bombs and car bombings in Iran. They say they worked for money and that their orders were to attack Americans and sow suspicion and violence between Shiites and Sunni."

Inskeep, interviewing Garrels, chimes in at this point to ask, "How were they tortured?"

To which Garrels responds, "There was blood all over their clothes. They were in such bad shape they couldn't walk; they had to be dragged onto the chairs, and one of them was just sobbing."

If you are a humane, compassionate person, you might think that at this point there is NOT ONE SHRED of validity to any of the confessions that these three torture victims give. But in fact Garrels reports at length about the testimony that these men give. She tells us "they said they went into a contested area of Baghdad, pretended they were Sunnis, raped a Shiite girl....also said they killed local Sadr militia leaders...also say they use American troops to further their ends....they said they're doing this for money on orders of Iranian agents working out of Badrwadjasan [sp?] on the Iraq-Iran border. They said their mission was to create an unstable Iraq."

I sometimes think that I'm pretty jaded, but then I hear a piece like this and am aghast. Garrels, Inskeep and NPR is normalizing torture, and treating testimony extracted under torture as valid and informative.

A secondary point worth noting is Garrels sloppy, misleading statements at the beginning of the piece. Of Muqtada al-Sadr she says, "Now Sadr has...been spending months in Iran apparently seeking safe haven there and his militia leaders say Iran is their chief source of weapons." Juan Cole has commented on the brazen US military propaganda nature of this unsubstantiated and unlikely scenario on February 14, 2007 and then on August 21, 2007 when he cited this interview in The Independent.

Dos and Don'ts

Gosh, if only the US had invaded Iraq and sought to make it our permanent Power Rangers Lily Pad and Uber Oil Rig with more finesse and cultural sensitivity, then things would be hunky dory over in Mess O' Potamia. At least that's the word on ATC from Lt. Col. John Nagl one of NPR's counterinsurgency-genius darlings.

Nagl is on with Michele Norris to talk about Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq During World War II, a WWII era book updated and re-issued by the military advising soldiers how to behave in Iraq. The interview is nothing but a infomercial for the book (and by association for the new warm-fuzzy COIN in Iraq). Nagl was "instantly charmed" by the old book and Norris praises its "wonderful illustrations." Norris says, "I must say the writing of the book is impressive...an economy of words...the language is very bright." Not to be outdone in pretension, Rhodes Scholar Nagl adds, "There's something almost J.D. Salingeresque about the writing..." Wow, put that on your garden and watch it grow!

(Original "wonderful illustration" is from the book and posted on NPR's site. Additional image from BAGnewsNotes)

Hell Freezes Over!

I'll end the weekend on an up note. Wow, great report on ATC tonight. Jackie Lyden interviews recent guest Joost Hiltermann, to talk about his newest book, A Poisonous Affair: America, Iraq and the Gassing of the Halabja. Hiltermann was an early critic of the war and the release of his book is an important event and an antidote to official American amnesia.

NPR gets a thumbs up for this one. More please!

Dirty Dealing

In her inimical upbeat style Renee Montagne (with cheery music in the background) tells us "now the Pentagon is ready to deal again. This time to save archaeological sites in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Isn't that peachy! Too bad it just doesn't square with reality.

You Knocked My Block Off

Listening to Barham Salih, one of the puppet government's Iraq's deputy prime ministers being interviewed by Michele Norris was like watching a French poodle get mauled by a pit bull (it wasn't pretty). If it were a Rock'em Sock'em Robot match Salih had it hands down. Why in God's name does NPR send out an intellectual featherweight when sparring against a professional b.s.-slinger like Salih. Here's how the bout went down:

Salih: "But this is a battle against an enemy called al-Qaeda and international terrorism that is transcending borders, and it is attacking here in the United States; it is attacking us in Iraq....I can tell you this readily...Americans cannot deliver for us; we have to deliver for our own country."

My make-believe interviewer: "Whooaa big guy...an enemy called al-Qaeda? What about the SCIRI death squads; what about the Sunni insurgents, what about the Blackwater shoot'em up types, what about Iraqis who just don't want a bunch of heavily armed, scared, trigger happy, kick-in-the-door-at-night English speaking soldiers occupying their country?"

Norris: "You say Iraq needs to deliver for itself, to stand on its own. Until it's able to do that, if you are against any kind of timetable for withdrawal, how long do you think the U.S. should or would be involved in Iraq?" [trans. Squeak, squeak, stand on its own, timetables, how long should the US be there - squeak, squeak...]

Salih: "When we assumed sovereignty in 2004 – June 2004 – we had no forces. Now Iraqi police and Iraqi military are nearly 400,000 or so."

My make-believe interviewer: (laughing heartily) "Sovereignty...ha..ha...that's funny. That's good. And excuse me Mr. Deputy Prime Minister, but did you really just say 400,000? Do you think I'm as stupid as my President, or are you dropping acid? 400,000? Now that is rich!"

Norris: "Now, Dr. Salih, I didn't hear in that answer a time frame. For many Americans, what they're uncomfortable with is this open-ended commitment." [whew, bold challenge...no time frame--very daring.]

As this farce of an interview goes on they talk about the "surge" and how it has been "succeeding" somewhat. And we get.

Norris: "I want to return to something you said. In your estimation, you say the surge is working, but might this be a temporary breakthrough in the areas where they've actually been able to provide some measure of security...." [Surge is working? On which planet?]

Salih: "That is the danger. How can we sustain the military gains? It's not just a matter of clearing a neighborhood for a day and then relieving it and creating a vacuum. We are working now on measures by which these military victories, these security measures, could be sustained beyond a search."

My make-believe interviewer: "That's it Mr. Salih. Military gains? Military victories? You've insulted our listeners enough for one day. This war is bad enough, but you are killing me...Goodnight."

I've got to believe that it's no accident that NPR lets a politician come on and shovel the same line as Bush with no challenge. It passes as informaton and lends credibility and legitimacy where none is deserved.

Gold Stars for Scottie and Guy

The disgusting exploitation of Pat Tillman's death -- orchestrated by the US Army (like the dishonest exploitation the Jessica Lynch "rescue") -- gets soft peddled and papered over by Scott Simon and Guy Raz on Saturday Weekend Edition.

These two accept the latest Pentagon versions of events without question. Here's Raz: "...but I should say at the outset Scott, the report found no criminal intent at all among anybody involved. What it did find was a series of mishaps, bad decisions, that led to circumstances where Pat Tillman’s family and essentially the country wasn’t notified about the circumstances of his death..." The report comes from the Pentagon's own inspector general.

What is interesting is that there is no intelligent coverage (such as can be found here) given to the actual facts or context of the Tillman story (and nothing about Pat's antiwar views or his brother Kevin's passionate critique of the current US war policies - in fact there has never been any coverage of this dimension of the story on NPR [see this search and this one]). Still Raz can say, with no embarrassment, "Well, we all know the story about Pat Tillman of course..."

Given that the original story of Tillman's death was a shameless propaganda ploy, what is the main journalistic concern of Simon? He asks Raz, "Does this in any way endanger the Silver Star that he received?" Now there is the question that gets to the moral heart of this sad tale.

Raz assures Simon that Tillman's Silver Star will not be revoked. Whew...I know I was worried. What Scottie and Guy don't tell us is that they have earned their gold star stickers for being loyal apologists for the Pentagon propaganda machine...good work boys.

The White (Wo)Man's Burden

Interviewing is just not NPR's strong suit. Regarding Iraq Renee Montagne this morning let Nancy Pelosi get away with this statement: "The United States overthrew their dictator, gave them elections. Now it is their turn to take responsibility for their security and safety of their people, and the reconstruction of their country."

That is a doozy! It deserves a little unpacking: Overthrew their dictator? No, overthrew OUR dictator, and that only after dismantling THEIR country 16 years ago (...that is so 2oth century), and choking it slowly for another ten. Oh and let's not forget an illegal and lethal invasion and occupation started just four short years ago. Oh, and a corrupt occupation authority. Oh and....you get the picture.

What is Renee Montagne's follow up to this distortion of the past? She asks Pelosi, "Did you learn from the Prime Minister precisely what the benchmarks are that are being discussed?" Unlike interviews, non sequiturs are definitely NPR's strong suit.

This is not just nit-picking. Allowing this statement to go unchallenged is immoral and dangerous. It not only covers-up the gross violence of US foreign policy, but actually glosses it with a veneer of the "noble cause." Also it shifts all the blame onto the Green Zone Government of Iraq. And finally, it justifies the Bush invasion of Iraq, only finding problems with the timing of it and the execution of the occupation, not the entire project.

Finding Out Nothing

There are moments on NPR that reveal the beliefs and assumptions of the announcers and reporters delivering a story. This morning Renee Montagne reports about the doubts surrounding Bush's new "strategy" of escalation for Iraq. She says, "and in Baghdad a reporter told the US Ambassador, 'I just don’t see what has changed.' The US is adding more troops and focusing on security in Baghdad but it’s been tried that before." Not a bad start to a report, but...

Then Steve Inskeep says, "To find out what has changed we called the ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, and we asked him to define the American goal now." Hold it, stop, whoa! Talking to Khalilzad - Bush loyalist, Unocal frontman, and one of the original neocon architects of the Iraq War- is not going to help anyone "find out what has changed." Consider the ways Inskeep could have begun this interview:

Today we are going to get the perspective of US Ambassador in Iraq...
Now we will talk to Zalmay Khalilzad to hear his explanation of the President's plans...

Instead, as is often the case, instead of data, evidence, eyewitness testimonies, or investigation, NPR presents the statement of a powerful government official as if it were factual, legitimate information.